Permission: Personal liberation for switched on women

By Lauren White

The very notion of being a woman who likes things a certain way, appreciates a good checklist (or timetable) and loves to hit life goals isn’t really synonymous with sexual liberation.

But what if I told you that it could be? That if you dropped the idea of thinking you need to be anyone but yourself in sex that you woul

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lauren White
• Release date: Sep 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9780648399278

Lauren White

Lauren White is a qualified Sexologist who assists her many satisfied clients to drop the anxiety and reinvigorate their sexual power in their intimate lives. Through her one-on-one sessions, writing and events, she helps women to release their physical and psychological blocks so that they can liberate their libidos for sex, intimacy and life.

Book preview

Permission: Personal Liberation for Switched On Women

Copyright © 2018 by Lauren White

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

All names and identifying details of the individuals in this book have been changed to protect their privacy.

Cover photo and author photo by Nicole Barralet

Cover design by Anna Dower

E-book formatting by Maureen Cutajar

To Yvette and Sylvia.

Created perfectly by sex and heart.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to the blank page for holding the word PERMISSION in early 2017 and just letting it sit there to marinate for a little while longer. This was one of the most beautiful lessons in timing, surrender and trust. I’m no longer ‘trying to trust’.

To Ed for being the most supreme permission wingman I could ever ask for. I hold no regrets about my verbal prayer to the big wide world to marry you one day. You continue to teach me so much about what I desire (and resist) most – the ultimate permission granter in love and life through your two favourite words: why not?

To Lisa Lister for giving the most succinct and timely suggestions and writing prompts so that this high achiever was juiced up but never overwhelmed. For being one of the few editors on earth that can recommend self-pleasure as a companion to writing and one of the very, very few that would work by honouring both our internal cycles and those of mama earth. Collaborating with you also instilled a little more of the quiet middle finger in me – constantly edging me closer to my own sovereignty. This creative experience was so empowering and liberating – you are one of my dearest permission granters and I love you fiercely.

To Sylvia Plath for hearing my multiple calls and allowing me to source the words as I needed them. We both write alone and with fervour.

To the women I love and know personally in family, life and biz – Mum, Sah, Pen, Heather, Suzy, Tina, Kateoy, Sim, Kirsty, Fran, George, Neens, Anna Dower, Yvonne Lumsden, Nicole Barralet, Alyssa Martin and all my friends that weave in and out so organically.

To Hugs Café for the steady stream of long blacks and generosity in space to write (and actual hugs).

To Nicole Mathieson for creating the anchor for the Permission to have trauma chapter through your heartfelt idea and generous contribution. I believe this gave Permission a much needed spine to support her.

To every client I have ever had the privilege of listening to. Thank you for sharing your stories with me. I’m still listening.

To the women that I am yet to meet that keep moving as permission granters despite adversity, disadvantage, oppression, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, trauma and pain…whether behind closed doors for one or standing in front of millions…you are creating a ripple of change.

CONTENTS

Part 1

Prologue

Introduction

Becoming your own permission granter

The good girl

Part 2

Permission to be sexual

Permission to feel safe

Permission to shelve desire

Permission to trust

Permission to be choosy

Permission to love vanilla

Permission to be serious

Permission to stay in control

Permission to take your time

Permission to sabotage

Permission to speak up

Permission to have trauma

Permission to have boundaries

Permission to not use products

Conclusion: Final words

References

About the Author

PART

1

PROLOGUE

My whole life I craved permission.

My problem wasn’t that I needed others to tell me what to do.

That’s direction.

That’s guidance.

That’s advice.

What I needed was confirmation that I should go for what I want.

For far too long, I questioned others as to what my next move was going to be when it was glaringly obvious that I already knew the answer to my own problem.

This tendency of mine was all too often heralded as an inability to make decisions.

I’m telling you right now, that making decisions was never the problem. That was the cover story.

I always knew the answer. I just wanted everyone else’s approval first.

From doctors to teachers to mentors to co-workers, friends, books and lovers, I have looked ever-outward to get the green light to do, and be, exactly who I was born to be. That dependent approach worked for a long time.

Until it didn’t.

My forays into the world of human sexuality highlighted to me that looking outward was not going to get me closer to owning my sexuality. I couldn’t be both seeking permission and be empowered. There’s always a payoff.

In fact, it all came down to this: how can I truly be who I am if I always need someone else to say permission granted?

Strangely, waiting with baited breath to hear permission being granted was rarely about the big compelling life decisions like, what career path I should take, or where I should live. The anxiety of approval worked backwards in me, and it was the small decisions that caused me the most angst and required a much more thorough de-brief. And if I couldn’t consult someone at the time, then I would seek permission after the event.

That’s when I knew my need for permission ran deep.

When I was faced with a choice and I responded by making my decision, yet I still wanted, and needed, confirmation from someone that it was the right decision to make.

Maybe handling the big decisions of life without a permission granter was easier because the pool of possible decisions was narrower. Flip it around to the smaller stuff though, and the need for permission ruthlessly infiltrated all the irrelevant parts that seemed so desperately important to me at the time.

Cast your imagination into the quintessential restaurant scene, and I was the woman sitting there umming and ahhhing over what to order. This tendency of mine to deliberate over what I ordered in restaurants got so painful for my family to endure that there would be serious tension when it was my turn to say what I wanted. All of those repetitive occasions culminated in one big fight between my Dad and I. There I was, at 17, so far enjoying our father-daughter Bali trip where my inability to decide what I would order for dinner was so deliberated that he cracked it. Words were exchanged about how I can never make a decision and I had little to throw back to that one. I sobbed at the table; snot dripping down all the way through some forgettable noodle dish. In the midst of being stonewalled by him, it felt fitting to rebelliously spend the rest of the evening all angsty with my journal and an overpriced bottle of Jacobs Creek Chardonnay.

Let’s look a little closer at that one. It may not look like it but I always knew what I wanted on the menu that night, just what would other people (in this case my Dad) think of what I wanted? What was going to be the answer that pleased them?

This is all pesky, right? Small. Insignificant. Yet, it’s the small and insignificant that is so telling of what condition the more personal facets of our identity are in. I’ve found that, if we struggle with the seemingly small things, it’ll usually cascade through to our most intimate encounters.

You may have already guessed what I’m about to say next.

Amidst all the little permission granting I required, the part of me that needed the most permission, and I’m talking by far, by a long shot and in a slow burn sort of way, was my libido.

It needed this because it’s been up against some pretty serious stop signs, causing me to taste the flavours of falling short and not enough many times over. No wonder it was confused and misdirected, it wasn’t being given the permission that it needed to move towards what feels good.

Maturity, marriage, mamahood and working with women taught me that the best things in life are a slow burn and obtaining the permission to run with my very high libido for life was no different. If I allowed it, time would permit its evolution.

Since immersing myself in the, equally enlightening, equally befuddling, learning that only human sexuality can provide, I am now held in a cocoon where I only seek permission when I’m truly stuck and I can’t see out of my own scope. In the inevitability of human dilemma, and as a helper that needs help sometimes, I’m going to need to seek permission from other people. Yet rather than this being a case of need and dependency like it used to be, the flavour is now occasional-requirement.

Sometimes I wonder, maybe, just maybe, if we weren’t raised to be ‘good girls’, then external permission wouldn’t hold such appeal.

And us good girls love permission because it reduces the risk that we’ll get something wrong or make a mistake. I’ve done this when I valued a superior’s expertise over my own internal compass and I’m now left questioning whether those ‘certain outcomes’ were worth more than the liberation of working it out for myself.

I want you to know, straight up, that when you start giving yourself permission, you don’t automatically lose touch with your good girl.

My good girl is a humbling asset that I need to draw upon to get shit done because she values loyalty, following through with what she said she would do, and completing tasks to the best of her ability. All of this is magnified when her actions are going to have an impact, or follow on effect, to others – there’s no way she can handle the possibility of being seen as someone who doesn’t finish what they said they would. That fear of being perceived as lazy or unhelpful drives her over the finish line every time.

I love my inner good girl and all that she has done for me. It’s just that I reached a point where I didn’t want her need for external permission to dominate my life anymore.

That’s what Permission is all about: keeping the desirable aspects of your good girl, your need to control, and your tendency to be serious and choosy, whilst still allowing your libido to have its fullest expression.

What brought you to needing to become your own permission granter might not have been something glaringly obvious on the surface, it might have been:

This general discomfort about sex that you can’t quite pinpoint

A feeling that you are holding back in sex but you don’t know why

Having trouble expressing what you like and need in the bedroom

An inkling that more intimacy and vulnerability is possible

Realising that you are often looking to others to validate you

A feeling like sex is something you should do rather than something you want to do

Not getting what your body is capable of or feeling like it is faulty

A nudge that saying yes to doing lots of things (or all the things) in life is sapping your sexual energy

All of that might not seem possible to understand and move through, but I’m living proof that it is.

Let me show you…

Lauren xo

INTRODUCTION

Can I ask you something?

Do you seek permission?

Not just to be polite, or to adhere to niceties, but to validate nearly every move or decision you make?

I’m talking about seeking permission when you are…

Needing something commonplace or ordinary in the office?

Glancing over the menu in the restaurant?

Trying to solve your problems with your friends?

Making a small financial decision?

Filling in your parents on your life plans?

Getting warm in the bedroom?

Constantly using words like, can I, may I, would it be alright if, should I, do you think, excuse me, do you mind if I… as the start of what you say again and again (and again and again?)

I want you to know there is nothing wrong with you needing permission.

You are not defective, broken, useless, stupid, or whatever other harsh word you might address yourself with, when you lose your way and need guidance.

You are enough as you are right now (and that includes your sexuality).

So if you’re asking yourself where your libido/sex drive/sexuality or mojo is, it’s possible that you’ve become focused on what you lack, or you think you don’t have, so naturally, you ask others to fill in the gaps. Doing that keeps the attention on what you aren’t enough of and how you need more.

Only that, your problem isn’t that you aren’t sexual enough, it’s just that you haven’t given yourself permission to access your sexual power. Yet.

I can relate. My inner sexual world and expression is likely not too different to yours. We probably started off hearing similar crappy and shameful messages about female sexuality. The only difference is that I’ve learnt to drown out the white noise and increase the volume on all the stuff in life that feels good and that’s what being your own permission granter is all about.

I was someone who had my shit together in all the areas of my life but didn’t dare ask for what I wanted in the bedroom. I always felt my sexuality wasn’t enough, and needed to be more, so I avoided being vulnerable in sex because I honestly thought it made me look weak and fragile. Instead of risking that, I defaulted to following the leader, which was always the other person.

I wasn’t born a Tantric goddess and I haven’t experienced a straight, ascending, line of libido improvement as time goes on, because life doesn’t usually play well with straight lines. Before I started learning about sex, my connection to it was patchy at best. It was on…it was off (a lot more than it was on) and what this looked like was sexual energy that spilt out into all the wrong places (and people) and a whole lot of confusion.

I didn’t understand that in suppressing this fire in me for so long and living life as a good girl, a smart good and a good wife, so faithfully that I would be sitting there at age 27 very…confused. On the outside, the boxes of my life had been ticked, I loved my husband Ed, but internally, I felt so shutdown and closed off.

I wanted it but I didn’t want it. I hated being vulnerable and loathed being seen this way in the bedroom. I judged all of sex as, kind of, negative unless I had a few drinks and suddenly had the permission to let loose. Sound familiar?

At the heart of it all, I didn’t have a fulfilling sex life and it didn’t create flow between us as a couple. I kept defaulting to having Ed work it all out for me and being plain passive about my own role in our sex life.

Learning about my sexuality formally, and informally, changed all that. Eventually.

I slowly matured, owned my role in my marriage, and got into the very raw business of unearthing my libido for me. These days, I still have lapses into an un-libidinous life at times like when stress is high, or during pregnancy and postpartum recovery, but these lapses don’t last for long and I know how to come back to my libido quickly. Not that it’s about speed, more about clarity and efficiency with a lot less anxiety.

It’s an honour to say the words to you that I WISH someone had said to me:

You don’t need an external permission slip for anything anymore.

Permission already exists inside of you. You don’t need to live with sexual repression, boredom and frustration. It’s definitely not too late to change. As long as you show up, and ask yourself the necessary questions, permission will edge you out of awkwardness and inhibition. More importantly, you don’t need to wait for an external source to tell you when the time is right and what the next move will be. Self-sourcing permission isn’t reliant on an external source – it’s solely reliant on you.

One of the key traits of switched-on women is that we are impatient. So, if you are feeling that way, can I ask that you use your impatience for good, and become your own permission granter right now?

When I devotedly followed my own internal green light I never looked back.

Sometimes I paused, and stepped to the side for a while, but I never went back.

My deepest hope is that the same will ring true for you.

How self-sourcing permission shows up

I like that permission doesn’t always happen in the traditional way of us going to someone and asking a question in order to get an authoritative answer. Sometimes it likes to surprise us, like when we are in the audience listening to a speaker, chatting with a friend on our couch, or with a colleague in the office kitchen, and suddenly permission just inserts itself into the conversation. One moment you are nodding your head on autopilot and the next minute you are having a deep revelation.

This is one of the key reasons why we need to keep in constant conversation with other women. Our stories have so much power to grant permission.

It will happen to me a handful of times every year. There I am, listening to or reading another woman’s story and it begins gently unfurling something within me that I have been holding on to with serious tenacity. A notion. A concept. A ‘truth’. And then she says the opposite. A huge opening appears. Sometimes, I audibly gasp with a sharp inhalation.

Fuck. How did I not come to that conclusion on my own?

Bam! Why didn’t I flip that script around?

Being immersed in women’s work means that I’ll always need to keep witnessing and learning from other women as there is no end point to our sacred contract to stick together. Personally, as long as I continue to learn from other women in all sorts of situations and contexts, I will live more of my life as my own self-sourcing permission granter. I assure you, it all gets easier and becomes more natural if you keep going and you always nurture your connections with